Internet and word of mouth safest bet in reaching out to Asian youth

A survey conducted by Synovate reveals some interesting facts about the media consumption habits of young Asians

The & #BANNER1 & # marketer's biggest challenge is to reach out to the youth and influence their purchase decisions. According to the latest Synovate study, marketers should bet on the Internet to help them.

According to the Synovate Young Asians Survey conducted in the age group of 8-24 years, as many as 41 per cent of the respondents were of the opinion that the Internet was the most helpful medium for making purchase decisions. Around 24 per cent of the respondents agreed that they relied on word of mouth to make a purchase decision. The votes for mass media platforms such as television were only 14 per cent and that for magazines and newspapers, only 6 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively. Among other media, only 9 per cent opted for in-store marketing; the remaining 1 per cent each chose outdoor and radio.

Going by a market-wise segmentation, 37 per cent Indonesians and 34 per cent Singaporeans preferred verbal recommendations over the Internet when making purchase decisions. Around 77 per cent Koreans found online information more helpful than peer recommendations.

Further, 55 per cent named the Internet as the most helpful source of information, followed by television (16 per cent), word of mouth (10 per cent), magazines (6 per cent), newspapers (5 per cent), in-store (5 per cent), outdoor (1 per cent), and radio (2 per cent).

The survey discovered that 50 per cent of young Asians across all ages accessed the Internet on a daily basis and 13 per cent accessed it between four and six days a week. Two-thirds of 15-24 year olds accessed the Internet daily. On an average, young Asians accessed the Internet 4.8 times a week.

Going by the most popular activities on the Web, it was discovered that 53 per cent of young Asians had used the Internet for information search in the past 30 days, thus making that the most popular activity on the Web. This is especially true in the case of South Korea, which has a very high density of Internet users. Here, 83 per cent young people said they had used the Net for information search in the last 30 days. The corresponding figure was 69 per cent for Hong Kong and 65 per cent for Singapore. In India, around 26 per cent of the respondents said they had used the Internet for information search in the past 30 days.

Among the most popular searched items in the past 30 days were news and current affairs (55 per cent), entertainment news (47 per cent) and leisure/ travel/ arts/ music (40 per cent).

The number of young people who used the Web for interactive communication was also quite high, as was to be expected. Some 52 per cent respondents said they had used the Web for interactive communication, making that the second most popular Internet activity: South Korea, 74 per cent; Hong Kong, 71 per cent; Taiwan, 69 per cent; Singapore, 66 per cent; China, 64 per cent; and India, 23 per cent. Popular online communication activities over the past 30 days included email (86 per cent), followed by instant messenger (73 per cent), chats and forums (40 per cent) and online interactive games (39 per cent).

Around 45 per cent of young Asians used the Internet for downloading/ uploading information, thus making that the third most popular Internet activity, especially in South Korea (69 per cent), Taiwan (65 per cent), China (57 per cent), Hong Kong (54 per cent) and Malaysia (49 per cent). Only 17 per cent of Indians said they had downloaded/ uploaded information over the past 30 days. The most popular downloaded items were music (83 per cent), photos (56 per cent), games (50 per cent) and videos (49 per cent).

The Internet activities that were put up for the survey included information search, downloading/ uploading, interactive communication, using search engines, listening to radio/ music, online auctions, online banking and financial services, online games, online purchases, online dating, online planning and booking, online learning/ classes, clicking on to an online ad, blogging (viewing or contributing), and accessing a personal homepage. It is to be noted that in India, 57 per cent of those surveyed had not done any of these Internet activities in the past 30 days. Therefore, the figures provided pertain to the other 43 per cent.

Requiring the hardware to support their digital drive, 46 per cent owned a desktop computer or laptop. Some 48 per cent of 15-24 year olds had viewed or contributed to a blog in the past 30 days, whereas 45 per cent had accessed a personal homepage and 14 per cent had participated in online dating. An impressive 14 per cent of 15-24 year olds had used Internet dating in the past 30 days. Hong Kong (19 per cent of all 8-24 year olds) and Taiwan (16 per cent of all 8-24 year olds) are the markets most into virtual wooing.

Despite their digital life, some things in the world of the young Asians are the same as for their predecessors. Although 52 per cent had turned to the Internet for entertainment purposes in the past 30 days, a greater number had turned on the television (87 per cent), listened to music (66 per cent), participated in some form of sport (64 per cent) or read a book or magazine (61 per cent).

Conducted across 10 Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, the Synovate Young Asians Survey provides detailed information on consumption and attitudes from childhood to early adulthood to meet the needs of regional media, marketing and advertising specialists. This year, the survey was conducted in conjunction with MTV, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Yahoo!